What the Eye can See
by Gandalf the Beige
Summary: AU  At 10, the Sully twins lost their parents.  At 22, Jake Sully lost his brother.  Now, as he arrives on Pandora, a planet 4.5 light-years from home, will he lose the last thing he has left... his mind?
1. The Offer

**What the Eye can See**

A rewrite of James Cameron's "Avatar"

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the properties contained herein. They all belong to James Cameron. I'm just mixing them up a bit... for fun and nonprofit, of course.

Authors Note: This story is more than mere tweaking but not quite a total rewrite. As such, I would deeply appreciate constructive criticism.

Summary: A rewrite of the movie with an Earth in (relatively) better condition, a smarter RDA, more developed Na'vi and... well, a lot of things, to be honest. Some of Jake's voice-overs will be kept in order to keep the feel of the film... with the appropriate changes.

* * *

It was that dream again. For the last year, it'd always been the same one. The trees... the clouds (or maybe mist or fog or... something). But what was really odd about the dream was the angle.

_'When I was lying there in that VA hospital, with a big hole blown in the middle of my life... I started having these dreams of flying.'_

The forest began to rise from below. Higher and higher it came, until you could almost touch the leaves, smell the dew.

_'Sooner or later though... you always have to wake up.'_

**Earth, 2148 CE, Standard Gregorian**

Jacob Sully awoke with a start. For a minute he almost began to panic before he remembered where he was. He was sitting... reclining in a comfy chair. To his left, there was a cabin filled with similarly seated, smartly dressed men and women, reading or poking at mobile tablets in their private niches. To his left... a window with the hard blind down. He opened the blind.

In the background, the air-steward made an announcement over the PA. "This is American Airlines Flight #514, non-stop from Arlington, Virginia. Please note that we will be landing withing the next 15 minutes." The obvious requests were made: please stow any carry-on items you had taken out; please return table trays and chairs to their default positions; please fasten your safety harnesses.

Jacob (or as he preferred to be called, Jake) began raising his chair fastening his harnesses, closing the blind. Besides... looking out the window at an endless series of green hexagons had reminded him _why_ he was here. And where _here_ was. Neither thought had any sort of positive connotation.

The airliner, kept aloft by eight massive VTOL turbines, veered sharply to the left. Above it, the thick, gray blanket of cloud that promised a prairie downpour. Below it was a massive network of interlocking, hexagonal fields, each subdivided into six triangular segments that were completely automated. Down there was grain, potatoes, beans, carrots, maize, soybeans, gourds and greens and root crops of all kinds... not to mention hemp and various oil-crops. From horizon to horizon, enough produce was being grown to feed (and clothe, for that matter) a city of five million people.

That city was where Jake Sully was headed. On the horizon, the skyline of Corporate City rose like some strange string of mountains from the flat Kansas plain. This city... this city-state... coming here was like coming home to a foster family.

For a funeral, no less.

The passenger craft hovered over the lower-lying buildings at the edge of the city, before coming in to dock at the city airport, landing smoothly in a shallow, ground- level maintenance pit at the flank of a pier that jutted from the main terminal. After the passenger bridge was firmly attached, First-Class began emptying out and Jake made to leave was well. However, getting out of his chair required the use of his own upper body strength and two airline attendants in order to get into his carbon-fiber wheelchair. He only accepted the help because it was absolutely necessary.

"_They can fix a spine nowadays... if you've got the money. A procedure that experimental means you'd have to sell your soul to come up with the first payment. Needless to say, vet benefits wouldn't cover it unless you've got 'guinea pig' tattooed on your ass"_

Jake began wheeling himself towards the exit, his duffel bag on his lap. For the first time since he boarded, the other passengers began looking at him in disdainful puzzlement. He was shaven and had a decent haircut... but his rumpled t-shirt, torn jeans and "Born Loser" squad tattoo really made him an oddity in this place.

"_I became a marine for the hardship, to be hammered on the anvil of life. I told myself I could pass any test a man could pass."_

Jake wheeled his way into the pier and began toward the main terminal.

"_Besides... getting away from 'mommy' seemed like a good idea at the time."_

As he reached the main terminal concourse, the proof of where he was hit him like a falling AMP suit. Everywhere there were signs of who ran this city, who had built it and kept money and people and life coursing through it

Back in the old fission days, when the first prospectors began probing the Martian crust, when the eyes of industry were already looking to the asteroids of the inner Belt, the United Nations had recognized that separate countries (or even unions of countries) couldn't keep all their nationals from creating total anarchy in the rush for off-world resources. Towards the end of avoiding that anarchy, the UN (through ECOSOC) had voted to establish a for-profit consortium that would be be the exclusive, monopolistic agent to develop, refine and market all resources and resource bases outside the territory of Earth and it's moon. This had been the beginning of the Resource Development Administration, the RDA.

That acronym was everywhere in this airport. Everywhere there were ads: ads for job openings with "The Company", ads for stock and ads for company bonds. It seemed every third video screen (the ones not showing arrival schedules) was tuned to some sort of business-related news; stock prices, business rumors and the currency rating of the RDAC among them. There were digital posters mounted into the walls: one minute it would be for the airport itself, then for some public service. Then they would change to advertisements for projects associated with RDA: re-greening the Sahara for example. Then they would change to career destinations: the Mercurian mines, chemical extraction on Venus, the promise of a new life on Mars (this one in particular caused momentary pangs of grief and bitter irony in Jake) or gas mining among the clouds of the outer giants with colonies on their moons.

However, there were ads that never changed. The largest screens constantly cycled one advertisement, a montage of still images, video, and voice-over that featured verdant forests, bizarre life forms, the gentle tunes of a decade-old soft-pop song and the general spirit of good-will and cooperation between worlds.

_Pandora._

Jake simply starred at one of these for a minute before moving on. It was just... something about one of those images seemed familiar. Maybe it was just that was where... Tom.

Finally reaching the entertainment concourse, Jake wheeled himself into his "rendezvous point", the Olympus Grill, Lounge and Sports Bar. Wheeling himself up to the front bar, he proceeded to order a beer.

"_Let's get it straight up front: I don't want your pity. I got enough of** that** from the nurses at the VA."_

Spying some attractive young ladies in slinky garments looking his way, Jake threw some of the old "Marine Charm" their way in the form of a raised glass and a wink.

They just turned their heads away and began laughing amongst themselves: not the giggle of the flattered, but that of someone a bit too polite to laugh in your face.

"_To be honest, I would have preferred comm numbers from a few of them."_

As Jake drank his can of brew (having forgone the glass with the lack of mixed company), he began looking around. The lunch crowd was just emptying out from the raised dining room, there was a soccer game on the main screen down by the dance floor, the other TV's... ah, news reports. Currently, a news report on the re-introduction of tigers to Java was ending, and something else was beginning. The newscaster, an extremely sober Indian man with a British-Derivative accent, was announcing the 20th anniversary of the establishing RDA voyage to Pandora.

The original, twenty year-old footage was shown, with the RDA Executive Secretary of the day announcing the inclusion of Col. Miles Quaritch and Dr. Grace Augustine to the mission _"To maintain the atmosphere of Humanitarian Cooperation and to further Understanding between our two species." _Quaritch, a tall, beefy man of about 40, had his light brown hair in a tight crew-cut and wore the typical Army Service Uniform, his face impassive. Beside him sat a woman wearing a shirt, vest and slacks combo that wasn't formal in the least. Her red hair up in a bun, the 40 year-old tenured Stanford lecturer looked 10 years younger than she actually was; a testament to the longevity gene-mods that her parents had paid an arm and a leg to procure for her in utero.

She just looked amused.

Watching this, it took nearly all of Jake's residual combat senses to detect the man coming up behind him on the velvet carpet. He spun one wheel on his chair back to swing to face the figure, a man in a close fitting two piece suit. "You the guy I'm supposed to meet?" Jake asked.

"Yes sir. We should hurry: you probably want to freshen up before the... service."

"_As if he had to remind me._" Thought Jake as he followed this man... his driver.

The vehicle was a luxury sedan with electric drive and modded to be wheelchair accessible. As they drove into the city proper, Jake looked out the window. Business-people, yuppies and even the odd family that had been out during the morning were hurrying for cover as the rain started.

"_The Company built and marketed this city as the perfect, planned, metropolis: A place where one could work and play and have all the comfort of the old suburbs without the insane commutes."_

Jake looked though the raindrops splashing on the window, gazing upon the lit windows of shops and galleries and other places of amusement and leisure. This section of the city, especially, seemed to be quite affluent.

"_No poverty, no crime, no corruption, they said."_

Then, in an alley, Jake spied a man wrapped in thick layers of tattered clothes and jackets despite the rising June heat, looking for a place to wait out the rain.

"_Try telling that to a man desperate enough to shiv another human being for the Company credits in his wallet." _

The car sped on, and the man passed out of sight.

"_Try telling that to the man who killed my brother._"

* * *

**Later...**

Jake wheeled himself though the hallway of one of Corporate City's many skyscrapers. Since he'd checked into his hotel, he'd showered (and been impressed at how paraplegic-friendly the bathroom was), ordered a suit from a catalog over the hotel line (he was certain that wasn't covered by regular room service), ordered a late lunch (which was), killed some time exploring the suite's entertainment options, accepted the suit (a light gray number) when it came, got dressed (he insisted on doing it himself) and called for the driver again.

And now he was here... Here to pay his last respects.

Along with most of the other services in this city, the RDA operate it's own funeral services in a specialized section of this very building. As he approached the entrance to the parlor that had been reserved for Tom's service, he saw another man in a black suit waiting by the doors. "Hey! This room 224?"

"Yeah, it is." The man himself looked familiar to Jake in some odd way.

"You're one of Tom's friends, aren't you?" Jake asked, examining the tall, spindly fellow with the neatly trimmed beard and mustache

"More of a co-worker, really. I'm Norm Spellman, University of Oregon. You're Jake, right? Tom always talked about you." For a second, Jake wondered if that talking had been positive, but banished those thoughts quickly. Now was not the time for recriminations, public or private.

"That's me." Now that introductions were made, the process of grieving had to start. "Is Susan here?"

"Yeah, she's... she's here." Norm opened the metal door for Jake and then followed him into the parlor.

In vast difference to the antiseptic, gleaming corridor they had left, the funeral parlor itself was... to be fair, it was a somewhat bastardized version of English Georgian Revivalism with largely white and cream-colored overtones. However, it was plush while avoiding gaudiness, comfortable yet formal and exuded an undeniable air of affluence.

It was this affluence, especially arrayed in the service of his kin, that irritated Jake the most. By the time he reached Susan, he'd managed to choke that irritation down.

"Susan, I... I'm sorry. If there's anything I can do, you just have to say it." Susan Sully, married to Tom Sully for one year and a new widow, just sat in one of the chairs next to the casket, looking downward toward her hands, clenched into fists in her lap. On the third finger of her left hand, a ring lay; a solid band of rare (and expensive) blue gold from Pandora. She and Tom had met in their first year at the University of Sydney, him in the Arts (Languages and Cultures, Xenology Division) and her in Dentistry. Their courtship hadn't exactly run smoothly: by the time they got engaged, her extended family, having variously adhered over the last 140 years to Wahhabi Islam, Malay Buddhism, Malay Sufism, fanatically nationalist "neo-Buddhism" and an agnosticism borne out of religious exhaustion, had pulled in every conceivable direction to get Tom to convert to their particular faith-or-lack-thereof in a complex, multi-faction religious free-for-all. It had ended when Susan's parents (born and raised in Sydney, like their daughter) had allowed the marriage to proceed in a typically secular-Anglican fashion, thus pissing off almost all the factions at once and the rest soon afterward.

Jake hadn't been able to attend, having been hip-deep in parasite-infested watery mud somewhere on an abandoned tree plantation in Venezuela, gathering recon on radical Neo-Maoist activity with waterproof night-vision glasses. It was part of the price he paid for his own path in life... besides his legs.

For Tom, there wasn't supposed to be _this_ kind of price.

"There's nothing for you to do." Susan said softly. Then she looked up at Jake's face (given his chair, not that far up) as he saw a fragile smile on her face... and indescribable grief behind her eyes. She looked back down at one of her clenched hands before turning and opening it showing a band of blue gold identical to the one she wore. "The police got Tom's ring back from the guy who..." Here, Susan began deteriorating into a mess of sobs.

"_I didn't think that day could get any worse after the service ended... but then I got the offer."_

**After the Service, On-site crematorium**

"You want me to _what_?" Jake whispered angrily at the man in front of him. They were in a far corner of the actual cremation room, a row of incinerators along one wall. Susan was watching the attendants as the prepared for the actual cremation: The casket itself had been an expensive prop; the actual cremation would be taking place in a fiber-board box. Tom's ashes and gases would then be pumped into a sealed canister and sent to Mars to aid the terraforming project, as he had selected on his RDA life insurance.

Luckily, they'd left Tom's suit on.

"Mr. Sully, you and your brother represent a considerable investment of money and resources..." The RDA representative began in an all-too-familiar tone. "But believe me when I say that the project Thomas was involved in completely dwarfs any dollar amount that has ever concerned you. That being said, I inquired whether you would be interested in taking over his contract." Everything in terms of money... this was really familiar.

"So you want me to go into cryo, get loaded on a spaceship and get sent to a planet in another solar system? Why did you approach me? Everything I learned about Pandora came from documentaries." Jake suspected something, an ulterior motive of some sort. However, he always suspected something ulterior with these guys, regardless of fact, testimony or common sense.

"Mr. Sully... Jacob..." The Rep began, trying and failing to act comforting. "While I cannot divulge the specifics of the project, I can say that you are the _only_ other person capable of participating in it." Then came the big guns. "We know about your problems with the VA, namely that they're convinced that you're playing some perverse game of "Chicken" with them. We also know how much you resent being in that chair, which is why they think you'll sign the guinea pig papers soon enough. What we're offering is a chance to avoid that altogether by offering to pay for the surgery when you get back... And the chance for you to make a difference while you're there."

Jake turned his chair around in time to see the support staff load Tom's coffin into the incinerator. Susan was still there, trying against everything not to cry again.

"_The egghead and the jarhead. Tommy was the scientist... he was the one willing to get shot light-years out into space to find the answers, whatever they were._"

Jake wheeled back to the Rep. "Alright, you've got a deal. But let's make one thing perfectly clear: besides the money for my legs, everything in my pay goes to Susan. Got it?"

The Rep then smiled in a way that Jake just did not like at all. "Mr. Sully, that was always the arrangement, even with your brother alive."

"_Me? I was just another dumb grunt going someplace I was gonna regret._"


	2. Planetfall

**What the Eye Can See**

A rewrite of James Cameron's Avatar

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This is Jame's Cameron's baby; I'm just taking it to the park..

Author's Note: I changed the layout of the Solar system on the advice of... some people. Also, inflation has increased times one hundred, with 100 story dollars worth one modern dollar.

Summary: Sully descends into the atmosphere of an alien planet. There, he first lays eyes on the natives (on the payroll), witnesses a living military legend (on peacekeeping and security duty) and meets an old friend (here for the money). He also garners more than a little attention himself.

**Alpha Centauri System, 2154 CE, Standard Gregorian **

"_People say you don't dream in cryo... and they're right, you don't. Dreaming would probably prepare you too much for the symptoms when they brought you out._"

He was here. After five years, eight months and twenty-two days of being frozen in biological time, he was finally here.

As Jake Sully sat in his chair, strapped to the wall inside the cargo hold of the Valkyrie shuttle-craft, crammed in with dozens of other people and huge containers of who-knew-what, he ruminated that everything they said would happen had happened. Hungry? Yes. Weak? Very. Nauseous? Enough to fill the supplied bag.

When the shuttle finally hit the atmosphere, Jake thought he might need another bag.

The Interstellar Vehicle (ISV) _Venture Star_, one of a chain of twelve ships going back and forth between Sol and Alpha Centauri, had settled into an orbit above the second moon of Pandora, the second planet in the system. It lay between Hephaestus, a roiling ball of semi-molten rock and metal closest to the sun and Circe, a world of barren glaciers and hallucinogenic gas geysers that had its own horror movie already. Beyond that, an asteroid belt and a huge gas giant dubbed Polyphemus completed the system. Despite the poisonous amounts of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen Sulphide and the... _unusual_ magnetic field, Pandora was probably the one planet in four light years that was even partially habitable.

Of course, no one was really ready for their first glimpse below the clouds. Not that Jake could catch a glimpse: the only windows the craft had were in the cabin. The only thing he knew was that, after a while, the turbulence was lessening and the craft was leveling out. From a hatch in the front, the crew chief emerged, a grizzled veteran of orbit-runs for two decades. He didn't waste any time. "Alright, listen up! This crate's landing so I want exo-packs on! Remember: you lose that mask, you're out in 20 seconds and dead in 4 minutes. It does not look good on my report when people die, so please try to refrain from doing so!"

The passengers hurried to secure their packs, full-face transparent masks attached to tubes that themselves attached to filter systems that scrubbed out the crazier atmospheric gases from the air they breathed. The ship suddenly jerked as the landing gears absorbed the shock from hitting the pad. "As soon as the ramp touches ground, start moving! Go straight over the covered bridge and through the main airlock into the HabMod. Do not stop for anything!"

Just a few seconds after the last mask had been donned, a warning klaxon sounded and the cargo ramp began lowering. Suddenly, the hold was flooded with heat and humidity, the scents of plant life and the sounds of industrial clatter as the mingling atmospheres visibly distorted the scene beyond.

"Let's Move!" The crew chief shouted. Most of the passengers immediately moved out and down the ramp, going straight for the covered bridge over a roadway. However, Jake had to maneuver his wheelchair out from the wall and onto the ramp, placing him significantly behind the other passengers. The air seemed to be... thicker, almost and he felt lighter than he ever had before. As he descended the ramp, he was finally able to get a good look at this place. So far, this was mankind's only outpost beyond the Sol system, officially designated RDA ESC (Extra-Solar Colony) 01.

Off the printed page, people usually called it Hell's Gate.

Beyond the outer perimeter, it looked like nothing but thick jungle surrounded the place. To his left was the rest of the landing pad, with Samson Helicopters, Scorpion Gunships and even a Dragon assault-craft sitting on the slabs. Panning clockwise, he saw the squat block of the refinery, the bio-fuel plant with it's vent-towers and plumes of flame, a large, shiny block of a bunker and the small dome that held the base fusion-reactor. The main bulk of HabMod was obscured somewhat by the chain-link and the bridge.

Then he looked all the way to his right.

_Jee-sus Christ!_

That had to be goddamn biggest tree that Jake Sully had ever seen in his entire life, starring at it even as he continued to automatically wheel forward. That thing had to be... he didn't know, but over 100 meters tall at least, maybe even 150 easily. It looked like a giant mangrove or... or maybe some sort of weird, non-parasitic fig. Jake was so shocked, so strangely entranced by that giant plant that he hardly comprehended as his chair met the pad, or as towering Cargo-AMPs strode past him, going up into the hold to unload the cargo. Finally shaking his gaze free and looking back ahead, he then saw something even weirder.

The bridge they were supposed to cross was over the main roadway to the industrial modules, used frequently by trucks bringing in ore and plant matter, the road itself bordered by heavy-duty chain-link fence. Even now, a massive dump truck was rolling in from the gate next to the tree. Though the fence, he made out something... _someone_ clinging to a series of rails on the port side of the main engine-hood. It was wearing standard camo and was wielding a gun, but it wasn't Human. For starters, Humans weren't usually dusky blue, didn't usually have tails, and weren't ten feet tall without serious health issues.

"_We'd seen them all the time in documentaries. Hell, when Tom and I were kids they were in every other cartoon and commercial. But very few people had ever seen the natives of an alien planet up close."_

The truck rolled under the bridge, continuing on to the refinery, the blue giant still clinging to the bars. As it passed, Jake noticed a couple of long poles sticking out of the rear tire; it took a few minutes for them to register as arrows.

"_For those that do, it's the most exciting thing in their lives... even if these guys fly lizards instead of spaceships._

As Jake watched the lone guard on the truck, people were watching him in return. Up on one of the guard towers, the sentries had spied the chair-bound marine. While one had exclaimed "That is just _wrong_!" at the thought of sending a cripple to his poison hellhole, another had taken the opportunity to look through his ranging scope. He was sure that he knew that poor bastard from somewhere.

Someone was also watching from the Ops Center.

"So, what do you think of the newest batch?" Parker Selfridge sat in a swivel chair, feet up on the back of a console, engrossed in the tech manual for the transceiver that had just arrived. Even though technology was evolving incredibly fast and they were getting new equipment almost every year now, their current transmitter took fourteen hours to send a message to Earth. If this manual was anything to go off, the speed would now be near-instantaneous, with video-conferencing being almost seamless. For a man who was sitting on the edge of a busy command floor and had his career on the line, he was pretty relaxed right now.

He wished he could say that about the person he was talking to.

"Another shuttle full of mercs? Miles should just _love _that." The voice was either tinged with bitterness or angry sarcasm as its speaker looked through the main windows and a pair of field binoculars out over the landing pad. "And it looks like they make up half the passenger. Like we need even _more_ crazed jarheads than we already have."

"Hey, look: first, they aren't all mercenaries. Second, the ES says we can't reduce our security compliment unless you have a formal complaint against any of them and we just can't load them back into cryo, at least not without reducing how much stuff we can send back to Earth. As for numbers, you know as well as anyone that we're still getting Kruczeks orders; the man... never really trusted the Tipani to guard this base." Selfridge thought that he must have had this conversation every year since he arrived, diplomatic pause at the end and all. Sure, there were points that he agreed with: he, more than anyone, didn't want a repeat of the Wainfleet Incident and Miles had always noted that every SecOps grunt with a gun was a potential liability, either by undiagnosed psychosis or by a potential exo-pack failure. But they kept showing up... so they might as well make themselves useful. "Besides, I asked what _you_ thought of..."

"Oh my god... That's him, isn't it?" The voice asked in disdainful disbelief.

"Him who?" Selfridge asked as he finally put down the digitized manual and looked out the window at the overcast evening sky.

"The one in the wheelchair. The new driver... they were serious, weren't they? They actually sent me a crippled _jarhead_." This brought a new wave of bitterness into the voice, raw from cigarettes. "I just hope he has simulator experience."

"Well, at least where he's going he won't need to walk around a lot." Selfridge got up from the chair, stretching the kinks out of his spine. "Come on; the Colonel's probably waiting in the mess hall already. Can't be late to a safety briefing now, can we?" He watched the figure move away from the window and toward the exit in as much of a hurry as it could, the tap of a wooden cane loud on the metal floor.

Five years and he still didn't understand this place... or these people. And in three months, he was leaving.

**RDA HabMod Cafeteria -"Hell's Kitchen"**

The new arrivals filed into the unlit cafeteria, taking their seats on benches arrayed in parallel rows. Hungry, tired, stinking of rotten eggs from the atmosphere outside and not yet settled in their bunks, the various personnel looked for somewhere to sit. Russian army mingled with American scientists, Chinese miners sat among Indian techies and Venezuelan Kitchen Staff, many fresh from fleeing their country, began conversing with the African Union comm operators. Into this field of figures and voices came Jake Sully, wheeling into the aisle.

A man stood at the head of the assembly. His perfectly barbered hair glinted in the light from the windows, his hands behind his back and his shoes impeccably polished.

Jake was pretty sure they were called "Balmorals".

"Ladies and Gentlemen... let me be the first to welcome you to a tour of duty on Earths first extrasolar colony." Parker Selfridge began, his voice carefully modulated to convey a sense of dignity and decorum that he himself had not possessed for two years. "My name is Parker Selfridge, On-Site Director, aka the Guy who signs the Checks, aka the Guy who Talks with Home. First, let me inform you of why we are here. This base, the equipment, the supplies, all of you, are here for one primary purpose." Parker put his hands into his pants pockets and pulled them out again, one drawing forth a squat and concave cylindrical magnet, and the other drawing forth a cube of gray metal. Holding the magnet in the palm of his hand, he placed the cube above it, where the metal amazingly began to float in midair.

"It's all because of this: Pandorium. Sure, there are other things: the medical breakthroughs, the botanical stuff, the technicolor precious metals... but _this_ is what keeps us here, what helps balance the budgets. Back home, they're doing _everything_ with this stuff: computers, fusion power, anti-matter, communications, transport... don't be surprised if, when you come back, people are talking about traveling faster than the speed of light. Basically, this stuff is hot shit on Earth, two billion current American Dollars a kilo worth of hot shit, and we're here to dig it up." He paused, as if to ponder a moment. "However, digging it up isn't the safest job in the universe. Therefore, I'll turn this over to our Chief of Security and UN Security Council rep... Ladies and Gentlemen, Colonel Miles Quaritch, United States Army."

From the wall under the window they sat facing, another man stood up from the chair he had been sitting in the entire time. Selfridge gave him a wide berth as the figure moved though the shadows to take his place at the head of the assembly. Almost immediately, every person with a military background and even some of those without, held their breath in awed disbelief. The reputation of Miles Quaritch was a widespread and mostly positive one: bringing peace to a few different countries and pioneering AMP suit combat can do that.

"Before I begin, I want to make one thing absolutely clear." Quaritchs' native east-Texas drawl was softened somewhat with the more typical BosWash accent that many West Point graduates had adopted to some degree during the past hundred years. "That one thing is that you are _not _in Kansas anymore. You are no longer in an urban environment. You are on Pandora, a planet orbiting our nearest stellar neighbor that has been variously described as either a dangerous Eden or a verdant Hell."

Quaritch then came out of the darker shadows, revealing his face and the details a silhouette couldn't suggest. He was still in the same shape he had been (if not a bit better) but his hair had turned light gray and his face...

Apart form the three, parallel, jagged scars that lined the side of his head, his face was perfectly normal.

"Now, I'm sure that most of you have heard stories about Pandora: the air poisoned with CO2 and Hydrogen Sulphide, magnetic storms strong enough to rip the iron from your blood, the perception that every living thing personally wants to kill you." Quaritch scanned his audience, searching for any sign of humorous dismissal of these stories. "Unfortunately for us, all of those stories are true." He turned toward the open windows, their shutters tilted open for maximum natural lighting. "Out there, beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or swims has the ability to kill you in any number of painful ways. If that wasn't bad enough, the animals possess bones reinforced with naturally-occurring carbon fibers, making them very hard to kill. As for the plants... the less said about the plants, the better."

He turned back towards the audience, stepping forward as the shutters snapped closed, shrouding the room in darkness. "As you all, probably, have heard by now, this planet supports an indigenous population of humanoids who call themselves the _Na'vi_, which means 'The People'. Not very original I know, but most cultures seem to go through that phase."

For the first time, Jake noticed that this cafeteria had another section, separated from them by thick, transparent walls, possessing a deeper floor and oversized tables and chairs.

Tables and chairs that looked big enough for the guy he'd seen on the truck.

Suddenly, a holo-pane projector lit up the faces of the audience with soft light. A map of a landmass was being shown, with location markers, borders and territories being color-coded onto it. "So far, drone flights, satellite imagery and long-distance diplomacy have identified over 400 separate clan or band groupings on this continent alone, most of which have a cavalry and/or airborne capability. Most of them are sorted into some kind of alliance or confederated group." The image zoomed in to a section of the western side of the continent, terminating in a view of the edge of a river basin and the mountains that lined it. "However, the two clans we currently have direct contact with are not in any kind of large alliance.."

The image zoomed in even further on a section of lowland jungle, revealing the pentagonal map of Hells Gate itself and the tree in the northwestern corner. "The first group that many of you will encounter are the _Tipani_, who inhabit this very base. As allies of the RDA and it's mother and daughter organizations, many of them are trained in the use of non-magnetic projectile weapons and work as base staff as well as perimeter and escort guards. As an example of this, over the last ten years, most of the new ore has been coming out of a strip mine 50 miles to the northeast. The only way equipment can get to and from that mine is via the Gullet, an arrow-straight road some 75 meters across, cut through the forest." Images flashed across the holographic screen, some of the early days of Tipani-Human interaction, some of Na'vi women in gloves and aprons processing livestock and game in the kitchens and more of warriors, male and female, wearing camo, handling guns and posing with human SecOps staff.

"The second clan you will encounter, in one way or another, is the _Omatikaya_." Here, Quaritch seemed to trill a bit more with his tongue, as if to accentuate the native pronunciation, as pictures of Na'vi in decidedly skimpier clothing flashed across the screen. "For the last five years, their favored mode of communication has in the form of been small-scale skirmishes with escort teams in the Gullet, usually with arrows coated in neurotoxin, exploding puffball plants coated with natural flechettes and home-made incendiaries. Whatever friendly exchange that may have existed when you shipped out is gone; as of last year, this base has been involved with a reignited clan-war. We operate..." Quaritch paused here. "We _live_ at constant Threat-Condition-Yellow."

He looked out at his audience, scanning each face. "As the Security Council rep, my job is to keep the peace; I will be the first admit that things have hit a snag. As Head of Security, my job is to keep you alive." His gaze seemed to stop at Jake. "I will not succeed." His gaze moved on. " Not for all of you."

"Here, you will need to develop a strong mental aptitude, a sixth sense for danger: a leak in your mask, a movement in the bushes, a shadow coming out of the sky; detect these and you may stay alive. Keep a sidearm on your person at all times and I mean at _all_ times when you exist the HabMod, preferably metal-storm or with firing-pin redundancy." He paused again. " We do not have an extensive med set up so if you go hyper-critical, the RDA reserves the right to pull the plug, ship your ashes home and give you an expensive funeral. With that in mind... I give you Doctor Grace Augustine, our UNESCO rep and our voice to the locals."

Quaritch turned away from the audience and strode back behind the holo-pane, passing through it as he went. Jake could make out someone else rising from their seat below the window and could hear the rapping of a cane against the metal floor.

This was when the _Tsahik_ of the _R'Dah_ came into view.

Twenty years ago, Grace Augustine had arrived on Pandora with an enthusiasm not closely matched since the heady days of Franz Boas. The first human outpost, as it was when she had first stepped off the shuttle, had consisted of a few pre-fabs sitting in a small patch of dead-fall, a fission 'hot-box' and some solar panels powering everything, an airtight tent peeking out between the southern columns of the Tipani Home-tree and some stereo-lithography equipment that was 30 years out of date at the time. Right away, Grace had been in with the Tipani, trying to coordinate a plan for interaction and negotiate an acceptable strategy for mining the Pandorium under the trees roots, but she had also began an in-depth period of field work that had already resulted in two books and was heading for a third. Back then, she had looked ten years younger than she actually was.

But now, as she came though the holo-pane... Jake had seen people with gene-mods for youth when he'd been in the Marines, and even compared to those who had their looks withered by hard combat at a similar age, Grace Augustine looked _old_. And this wasn't "graceful" old; this was haggard old The old that the overworked and the over-drugged got by the time they passed middle age.

In short, she looked like absolute crap.

Still...

Her eyes burned across the assembled crowd, taking each detail and clue to the questions that she deemed useful: who were the likely trigger-happy idiots, who were in it for the pay package and who were those civilians who were genuinely excited about their missions here? After she saw Jake, she exhaled, placed both hands on the knob of her cane and began addressing the assembled.

"_Oel ngati kameie._ You will be hearing this phrase a lot during your stay. In Na'vi, it literally translates as 'I See You', though it has much more to do with emotional and logical clarity and understanding than it does ocular sight and is the standard greeting, both formal and casual. Since Miles started in on the subject, I should probably expand on it." She turned to look at the screen, starring at it until a new set of images came up, the first of which were pictures of the gigantic tree on the base. "The Na'vi are an utterly alien species but one that shares many similarities with humans and other Earth animals. Due to the strong magnetic fluxes present across the planets surface, the vast majority of local animal life developed a copper-based blood chemistry similar to the Hemocyanin found in Earths Horseshoe Crabs. If anyone is interested in what long-term exposure to these vortexes can do to humans, Dr. Guillermo Munoz, the base MD, has several sets of pictures; if you have a weak stomach, I suggest you not eat anything before you view them."

The crowd gave the last remark a series of nervous, strained chuckles. Ignoring these, Grace continued. "As with most other large animals, their primary breathing spiracles are located along the line where a human collarbone would be, the nostrils being an auxiliary set used for swimming, smell and vocalization. Also present are triple-lobed brains with a neural queue coming out the back of the skull. Culturally, the local clans have a few characteristics similar to those of certain Neolithic societies on Earth: descent traced though the mother, rituals based on social transitions and public functions, as well as periodic spurts of inter-clan warfare. The clans themselves are based around groups that are presumed to be descended from extended families, now expanded to include sixth, seventh and eighth cousins. Food collection, whether hunting, collecting insects or foraging for plants, are divided equally between males and females, though war and patrolling is mostly a male practice while crafting of textiles and tools are primarily female, with females also controlling a disproportionate amount of clan education and culture."

The picture of the tree expanded to fill the entire screen. "In this region, the clans are settled in the interior of these large trees, called _Kelutral_, or Hometrees. Largely hollow interiors allow for a multitude of layered living spaces, from clusters of hammocks to work-ledges and storage spaces. The branches provide perches for the _Ikran_, or Mountain Banshees, that clan warriors use for airborne scouting and hunting." She paused, reached into her pocket, retrieved a sip-pouch of water, took a draw, and then replaced the pouch. "Around the base of the tree is usually clear of other trees and large undergrowth, leaving enough room for a defensive perimeter as well as some basic horticulture and space for tamed Direhorses, or _Pa'li_, their cavalry mount. There'll be Direhorses accompanying the convoys, so keep bullet spray to a minimum. Besides..." Here, Graces eyes seemed to slide toward Miles, who had taken his seat, and Parker. "Bullets don't grow on trees, even if the local arrowheads do. If you have any further questions, I have published two books, both of which are available in the Gift Shop, aka the Base Library." At this last remark, a small trace of humor had shone though her stoic mask. She deserted the stage as the holo-pane shut off.

Parker came up to the front again, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically as the window shutters opened.. "Alright, that concludes our little prep-talk. Dinner will begin in about 25 minutes, so if any of you could help move all the benches and tables back, it would really be appreciated." The crowd was silent and still. Miles just began shaking his head and chuckling under his breath as Grace looked at him oddly. "Alright then..." rallied Parker, becoming less friendly. "How about this: if you don't help, you won't eat until breakfast and I will personally help spread the word that the new batch is full of assholes."

Perhaps motivated by the thought of actually eating in the next hour, the vast majority of the assembled began rising and moving benches and tables back to where the colored lines on the floor matched up. Jake, however, couldn't really do much at all except watch.

"_Nothing like an old-school safety brief to put your mind at ease. Too bad that one wasn't it._"

**27 minutes later**

Jake smiled tightly as a scoop of starchy, yellowish-gray glop was ladled onto his tray. He'd already been sniffing carefully at the breaded... _whatever-they-were_; he'd narrowed it down to shrimp, fish sticks or possibly witchetty grubs. With any luck, there would be table salt and ketchup close by when he began eating..

After he grabbed a distilled water pouch and punched through his meal card, he began wheeling back to the bench where he'd left his duffel, now occupied mostly by SecOps ground troops. SecOps... they were the security force for the RDA, all of them former military and organized more like a PMC than a real military.

"_Back on Earth, these guys were Army Dogs, Marines, special forces; fighting for freedom... or whatever their countries said to fight for. Out here, they're just hired guns for the Company; the good guys come for the fat cash, for the adventure or for one last chance; The bad ones... for the bad ones, it's a dumping ground."_

When Jake reached the spot where he had left his bag, he found it gone. This made him more than a little peeved. "Alright, I know it was one of you limp-dicks who took my bag; give it back and I won't have to get nasty." At this, the dining soldiers turned, half in surprise and half in curiosity.

"Big words for such a short-ass." This voice came from behind Jake, and when Jake turned, he saw the back of someone he knew.

"Ward? Charlie Ward, is that you?"

"That's 'Infirmary' Ward to you, Corporal Sully." The man turned around in his seat, revealing a tanned face. "You always did like talking big, Jake. I'm just wondering how often it's gotten your ass kicked since I left." Laughing to himself, Charles Dexter Ward reached under the table and pulled out Jake's bag. "Come on, you can sit with us."

So it was that the SecOps grunts cleared a space for the crippled Recon marine who, after his tray was on the table, maneuvered his numb legs over the bench and used the arms of Charlie and another grunt to pull himself onto his seat. After he had eaten a few tentative bites of the starchy glop, someone spoke. "Hey Ward, just who is this meal-on-wheels anyway?"

"Fike, I don't think you want to keep talking like that. Jake Sully here was 4th in Covert Kills in the whole Caribbean Theater. He could probably beat your ass even _without_ his legs." Here, Charlie deigned not to mention that Jake had achieved most of these kills with silenced firearms and that his melee proficiency was "acceptable" at best.

A couple of grunts began exchanging glances, as if challenging each other on whether they wanted to disrupt a hot meal for the sake of macho posturing. "All I meant was that... well, I seen a lot of guys go home in a chair, but I ain't never seen on arrive here in one. What they got you doing here anyway, Sully?" Sean Fike had gone back to eating, biting into his breaded whatever-stick with gusto.

"Don't know; they just said I have to report to a Dr. Patel tomorrow morning. All I know is that my sis-in-law is getting a butt-load of money out of my paycheck." There was a hush, as if some more explanation was merited. "My brother was the one who had this job originally, a real science geek. He got killed in Corporate City just before he was supposed to ship out; left behind a wife. Most of the money is going to her, the rest for my legs and then... I guess it's back into the Corps. Once a Marine, always a Marine."

"A Dreamwalker with a gun... that'll be fun to watch!" This was the offhand comment of a German mercenary a few seats down. Some of the others laughed, but Jake only got confused and turned to Charlie. "A what?"

War sighed and pointed to something toward the transparent wall. "You see those guys?" Jake turned his head, really seeing the scene for the first time, even though he'd been looking at it for almost half an hour. Dozens of Na'vi were using their end of the cafeteria to eat. All of them were in human style clothing, scooping food from warming trays into bags or bowls before they either sat at a table or went back outside. Most of them were wearing camo: escorts guards who had just come off a shift. Some of the others were wearing simple shirts and shorts or even just kilts and ponchos. There were even kids, some looking as young as post-toddlers, occasionally getting what Sully presumed to be sweets.

"Yeah." Jake answered his friend.

"You ever heard of the Dark Dreamer Project?" Ward again queried.

"Just all that animal-rights stuff and a few WSPA brochures." To be honest, he had always been a bit fuzzy on the details.

"Well..." The field-medic began. "Let's just say that I hope you enjoy walking outdoors without a mask." Without another word, Ward went back to eating. Noticing that Jake still wasn't touching his sticks, Charlie prompted him. "It's _Teylu_. Think of it as a really sweet King Prawn."

"What is it really?" Jake asked, prepared for anything.

"Beetle larva." This was Fike's flat answer, just before he finished one off.

Girding himself and taking a bite of his, Jake was surprised to find that the sticks actually were... really good, like a sweet crustacean.

"Well, it's a lot better than bush tucker." Jake finally said, downing the rest of the _Teylu _in two more bites.

"Good, 'cause tomorrow we're playing 'Name That Fish'." Another merc, sounding Scottish or Northern Irish, said in a jovial tone.

"What, we get fish here?" Asked Jake.

"No... but you wouldn't know that just by tasting it." Charlie smiled. He could fill Jake in on the strangeness of this place later; right now , he was just glad to have him here, legs or no.


	3. The Lab

**What the Eye can See**

A rewrite of James Cameron's Avatar

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. It's either James Cameron, CCR, or Treyarch.

Summary: After a night among the troops, Jake meets up with the rest of the members of the mysterious "avatar" program... not to mention the pinnacle product of modern genetic engineering, one that has a familiar face.

* * *

**Hells Gate, Pandora**

**May 24, 2154 CE, Standard Gregorian**

Across the base, radios crackled as someone blew into a microphone.

/ _Oel ngati kameie to everyone on this beautiful Pandora morning. This is Raymond Giesbrecht, your friendly base psychologist and you're listening to W-RDA Radio,bringing you all the Earth-hits and the latest news, right from our fingertips to your ears. It's 7AM Local Equivalent Time, so let's get things started with the Flower-Power-Napalm-Hour, bringing you the songs of love and war from the decade that changed a nation. Our first request is from Kes'Me, sending a song out to her mate on Gullet duty. Here's "Fortunate Son" by CCR._/ The beating of the drums started pounding through the halls as Jake and Charlie made their way toward the labs, soon followed by a twanging guitar.

"So, is the kind of show we got back there normal for this post?" Jake asked his friend as they made their way through the narrow halls. The first day after the new arrivals got in was always hectic, with everyone trying to get where they supposed to be (and trying to figure out where "where" was). As if to accentuate this, a Hispanic woman lugging a plastic crate full of packaged exo-packs barely maneuvered past them.

"You mean the radio show or the chewing out that Marinov gave us back in the barracks?" Replied Ward as they continued on their way. After Jake gave him the shrug that was understood by them as meaning 'both', Charlie began explaining. "From what I hear, Giesbrecht started this thing so there'd be more of a connection with Earth, a morale exercise. He's a nice guy, a bit too helpful sometimes but nice; calls himself a 'Cultural Mennonite' or some shit." They dodged another person, a SecOps grunt carrying a pair of ammo crates by their handles. "As for Sergei, the good Captain has a zero-tolerance policy for 'shenanigans', as he calls them. Something frivolous like wasting TP for a mock parade will get you livestock duty... but if you do something really stupid like Macklebee and his quest to bug the Female Showers, just be glad that the rest of us ratted; Chacon is _not_ going to be a happy camper after a stunt like this!"

Jake was just a bit curious about who this fearsome "Chachon" was, but something more urgent was pulling at his memory. "Wait a minute, are you saying that the guy who was berating us was..."

"Yep, he's _that_ Sergei Marinov. The 'Monster of Magadan' himself." Answered Charlie.

The crippled Marine stopped for a minute. "You mean the guy who slaughtered over a hundred Siberian rebels who were trying to surrender?" Jake hadn't heard a lot about the Sino-Russian War over the far northeast, but what he had heard about it was almost as bloody as what he'd learned about Nigeria.

"No, I mean the guy who killed one hundred and four rebels with suicide vests who were trying to lead his battalion into a wipe-out." Charlie flattened against the wall in order to avoid another crush of people lugging what looked like cables, after which they began moving again. "The way the other Russians tell the story, that war was a_ mess_; a lot of people had to make decisions that weren't... _popular_. The reason Sergei is here is because Quaritch needed a guy who had that sixth sense for danger, who could smell when shit was about to go down. Besides, the Ruskies were desperate to get him out of the spotlight after the war ended and RDA was taking applicants." As they rounded a corner, Charlie caught a glimpse of a thin, gangly man. "Hey, I think this is your stop. I'll catch you later if I can." With that, Charlie clapped Jake on the shoulder and began heading back the way they had come.

After Charlie had disappeared into the crowd, Jake continued wheeling forward until he saw Norm waiting by a door. "Hey, Norm! This where we're supposed to report to?"

Norm noticed Jake's abrupt welcome and responded in kind. "Yeah. I sure hope we're not late, though." Like all he new arrivals, his beard and even his hair had been shaved down to stubble before they left Earth; something to do with bacterial growth in the cryo-pods.

As Norm submitted to the retinal scan that unlocked the door and then held the door open for Jake, they entered an entirely new world. The main lab was still powering on for the day: half the light panels were dark, staff were running the start-up sequences on the equipment, but a significant source of activity was giving off quite a bit of light. The two new arrivals saw what appeared to be two giant, glowing, blue cylinders being unpacked from the cargo containers that had arrived with them on the Valkyrie.

Wheeling closer, Jake began to get a good look at what was going on. People in white coats were checking screens, walking around working on those portable, clear hand-held screens that they made on the Moon and still other visually checking the tank's occupants.

As to the occupants themselves...

"They got _big_..." Norm probably knew a lot more about this project then Jake, but just by looking into the giant amino-tanks, Jake knew that this was definitely outside his frame of reference. The being that was floating inside the tank (was well as the one that was, presumably, in the other tank) was basically the unconscious form of an adult... _male_ Na'vi. However, even Jake could spot the differences as he drew closer: smaller eyes (which were closed), five fingers and toes on each hand and foot instead of four, smaller breathing spiracles, what he thought was a bulkier chest and... well, the rest of the face made it obvious that no one with two braincells to rub together would ever mistake this guy for an actual Na'vi.

That face... looked familiar somehow.

"The crew were tending them on the way over. They set an intermediate growth cycle so they could monitor the vitals better... and so they'd be adults by the time they arrived. The rate was Three and a Half." Said a voice coming up beside them. The speaker, a slightly overweight man with black, curly hair, a short beard to match and a remarkably light Hindi accent, was dressed as one of the lab staff, white coat and all. "I Apologize. Dr. Maximilian Patel at your service... and I assume that you two are the new drivers."

"Yeah, we are." said Norm, still peering into the tank. After doing a little mental math, Norm looked up at the Doctor. "So the growth-rate is roughly human-standard, then? I knew that the Na'vi had a similar genetic architecture to us... but what were the chances that they had a similar life-cycle as well?" Norm Spellman was a botanist by training, but some things held true between plants and animals.

"Considering the common elements of bipedalism, similar perception of the ocular and sonic spectrum and layout of organs and tissues... the favored theory in _this_ lab is the intervention of some sort of alien Precursor civilization." Answered a voice coming up from behind them. Norm turned to see an elderly gentleman approaching them from the shadows of one of the outer rooms. Gentleman _was_ really the way to describe him: a measured, dignified stride that had stiffened with the rigors of age, a shock of luxuriant, slivered hair that would have found a home on any good politician and an accent rich with rolling consonants. As Norm and "Max" began discussing the technical details of the whole project, the man noticed that Jake was still peering into the tank, looking at the strange creation.

Coming closer to the tank and leaning in so that his head was almost level with Jake's, the doctor began to speak. "Remarkable, isn't it. A combination of two sentient species, impossible to achieve without advanced science. I remember when I and Dr. Lovecraft were working on the whole setup... sometimes it seemed like were had all the power of creation at our fingertips."

"The guy was really smart, was he?" Jake asked the older man, slightly turning to face him.

"He was. Philip was a brilliant scientist... and quite, _quite_ insane." Munoz turned to face Jake as well. "The whole Chimpanzee business was an unfortunate necessity but, looking back, I have to admit that my associate was already becoming a total _demente_." Right then, the older man realized that he was being unsuitably mysterious. "A thousand pardons. Guillermo Munoz, the One with the Pictures."

"Jake Sully, jarhead." Jake seemed to focus on the doctor a little more. "I'm here because my brother died before he could come."

"I know... we all heard about Thomas. We were counting on his presence. And speaking of which..." Munoz pointed a finger towards the body in the amino tank.

It was only then that Jake actually recognized the subtle features of the face in the tank. "_Tom_..." It was barely a whisper, but it was certainly a sign of recognition.

"This _was _going to be his Avatar, so it made sense that it would look a little like him." Munoz paused before continuing. "On the other hand... it also looks somewhat like _you_. And since you were your brother's twin, you were the best candidate to pilot this body."

Jake was still examining, the face of the body in the tank when he suddenly comprehended those last words: Pilot This Body.

_What_?

Meanwhile, Norm had stopped talking shop with Dr. Patel and was now getting anxious for some action. "So... when do you think we'll be able to take these things for a spin?"

"Not until Dr. Augustine gets in. The weekly Staff meeting was this morning, but it should be over soon." Dr. Patel answered, subtle hints of annoyance and resignation present in his voice. Norm asked why it was so important that they wait; after all, wasn't Patel the head of the Avatar program?

"My young associate may head the program and, as his technical superior and original researcher, I may be the chief medical scientist. However..." Guillermo paused and began to faintly smile. "The one thing that you must recognize as unshakable fact, at least for the benefit of your tenure in this facility, is that this is_ Dr. Augustine's_ laboratory."

* * *

_**Meanwhile, in the Inter-species Staffroom**_

_/I ain't no fortunate son.../_

Sometimes, Parker Selfridge could really detest the Colonel's taste in music. He just hoped they put on something else today.

With the way the newly-debarked Director-in-waiting (his eventual replacement) was shaping up, that was all he could look forward to.

"Well, I think we've covered the small stuff for the week, so let's get to the really pressing matters." Parker decided that the more he drilled in the way things were done around here, the more prepared his replacement would be when the changeover came. "We all know what the Pandorium deposits underneath the _Tipani Kelutral_ are running out, especially because we can't compromise the structural integrity around the root pillars. Additionally, I assume you all remember the memo from our New York PR office. After those images of the pit mine were smuggled back to Earth, the conspiracy nut-jobs and the hippie fanatics went apeshit." To his right, he saw New Guy (who he vaguely remembered being referred to as 'Burke Shipley') scroll though his copy of the agenda, hoping to find that particular point. Parker didn't need to, having been yelled at enough the day he got the news.

Now came the more positive spin on things. "The good news on that is that wider public outrage died down after we made it clear that you guys..." He motioned to the other half of the table behind the transparent wall, where sat the Tipani leadership. "were alright with it, and that it was going to be reclaimed as best we can. In short, none of us likes that big ugly hole at all, which means..." Parker rallied here, prepared to hammer in to his replacement's head what had to be done. "Which means that we have to convince the Omatikaya to let us establish a mine under their tree. Have the negotiations made any progress at all since last time?"

At the end of the table that was technically outside HabMod (save for a hallway and some stairs), three adult Na'vi sat, reading their copies of the relevant reports. The two males were wearing variations on a short-sleeve version of the International Combat Uniform; one wore an extensively worked vest of leather segments pierced with bone spindles and an Ikranay-hide cloak over his shirt. The other wore rather less ornamentation, with only a necklace of sting-bat quill-beads and a set of US Army Captain's bars to differentiate him from the other warriors.

The third, an adult female, wore little else than a blue fabric kilt and a tube top. However, like the first male, she had adorned herself with a number of items: most of her hair was in small braids and heavily laden in beads of shell, stone and artificial polymers, her gorget of roughly woven cordage, green and yellow, still contained some of the tools useful to her and her eyes... had the same burning, calculating intensity that Dr. Augustine sometimes showed.

She was also one of the few in her clan to still wear her _tswin_ outside her clothes.

The first male, Mato'a, the 35 year old _Oloeyktan_ of the Tipani, mulled over something. "We've... been thinking about offering to return all of the talisman bones out warriors have collected over the years. I know that the elders won't approve, but with everything that has been gifted to us, keeping those talismans... it doesn't really make sense to hold on to them, not with what we have to fight with now." This decision had been long in the making and constantly argued over, but if this offering could pave the way for peace, it was worth it.

Too bad the first offering apparently didn't work.

"I really hope that works, because if it doesn't, the senior warriors are going to to be pissed that their traditional strength was going to be betrayed and bargained away for nothing." N'Deh, himself 30, was admittedly the best among the '_Kunpongu_', the warriors trained to use scaled-up human guns. He was the leader among those who escorted the trucks and the bulldozers to and from the open-pit mine, as well as being one of Quaritchs two "_Tsam'eyktan_" or warrior-captains. "Besides, their youngbloods haven't let up their attacks; we've been lucky to get mostly arrows in the treads, but last week they exploded a puffball bomb on the side of one of the bulldozers. The lacerations weren't that serious, but it's made a lot of my younger _Tsamsiyu_ nervous. I agree on what has been said already; no one likes that big hole, and the sooner we can begin fixing it, the better." N'Dehs eyes flickered toward Dr. Augustine, who was sitting beside Shipley. Her eyes then focused upon the female Na'vi.

Sanume took this as her cue to offer a theological perspective. She was the Tipani _Tsahik_, the clan matriarch and interpreter of Eywa's will. Clans in the forest often did not even prepare for hunts without consulting the _Tsahik_ and her insight into the opinion of the Great Mother, the deity that united all the clans in their world and (some said) the world itself. "I too agree. When your miners burrowed under our home for the gray stone you valued, Eywa left us in peace. It is... _possible_ that she even approved of your conduct when she sent the absolute smallest of her creatures to aid you against your sicknesses." This was in reference to the retrovirus that had been discovered during the fourth year at Hell's Gate. It had strengthened the human immune system to the point where, after it had been sent back to Earth and sold to the public for a fortune, most aggressive pathogens were slowly becoming extinct in in their human forms. As it had been impossible to contain, the RDA had agreed with the opinion of the WHO: make profit in the initial introduction of the retrovirus into a locality and then let it spread, improving health as it went. It was also, sometimes, touted as the reason for the lack of pathogen-borne disease among the Na'vi. "I have not spoken to their _Tsahik_ in many years, not since well before her daughter became one with Eywa... but if any among the Omatikaya can appreciate the logic of putting an end to the Great Mother's disfavor, it will be her."

As everyone took that in, Parker thought that this was a good time to end it. "Alright, I think that covers it. Dr. Augustine, I want you to see if we can arrange a meeting with the Omat's." Grace made to launch into how recent events made that almost impossible, but Parker interrupted. "And before you tell me about Dr. Yang, I want to you to remember just how desperate we are to begin fixing this situation. Colonel, after tonight's movie I want your opinion on infrared equipment for the escort teams. Dismissed." Parker grabbed his tablet, got up and headed for the door, followed by his replacement. Grace then took her cane, pushed herself up and headed for the door herself, her body language radiating quiet frustration and anger.

Quaritch, seeing that his captain was looking quite concerned over the doctor's exit, stood up and followed Grace out the door. In the hallway, he found that she had been moving very fast for someone using a cane as heavily as she did; fast enough that he had to jog to catch up with her. "I notice you didn't say much during the meeting." he'd noticed that since Dr. Yang's... _incident_ that she'd been angrier than normal, with today and yesterday being particularly bad. Frankly, it was bothering him.

"Neither did you." Grace's answer was curt, irritated and vaguely acidic. However, she then slowed down a bit and lost some of the acid and irritation from her voice. "So, what do you think of the new guy?"

"You mean how does he stack up compared to every OS Director we've had here?" Quaritch queried, to which Grace gave an affirmative nod. "Well, he's no McDougall, if that's what you mean. He probably won't have Teoli's organizational skills; even Selfridge has a goal-directed drive to succeed that the guy _might _have... if not Selfridge's preference for diplomacy. But if if he turns into another Kruczek..."

"He'll be scrawny enough to manhandle into a five-year house-arrest?" Grace finished, more of her irritation draining away as she vaguely imagined such a scenario.

"Not possible with this new transmitter we just got in. People would be asking questions _real _fast." To be honest, Miles missed this... this basic friendliness with Grace. He remembered how it used to be: the staff poker games in the Arms Bay, their weekly game of ping pong, even trekking into the Omat's territory during the early days of the school project. Those had been good days, the first ten years here.

"Or you could just dump him in the forest." Grace wondered aloud, sounding as if she was almost considering it herself.

But... here was where Quaritch rapidly switched gears on the subject. "Look, I know the last week's been hell on you, so what do you say to some R and R? You and N'Deh could come over to the games field later, watch the first round of tryouts."

With that, Augustine's irritation began to return as she remembered what she had waiting in the lab. "I really wish I could, but the new drivers are supposed to be in this morning; one's our new Botanist and the other..." Now the exasperated woman shook her head and sighed. "The best young xeno-cultural specialist in years gets shanked and they send me his jarhead brother so they won't have to scrap a body." Now she looked sideways at the Colonel. "Why they didn't just refer him to you first, I don't know." And there it was... a subtle hint of distrust in her voice, aimed directly at the man walking beside her.

Despite the sign of tension, Quaritch plowed ahead. "That doesn't mean you two can't stop by. Hell, bring the fresh fish with you when they've got the hang of their blue-suits. It'll be a good prelude to tonight's movie."

Augustine seemed to stare at Quaritch for another second, as if to find any duplicity, but finding none, gave her answer. "I'll think about it." She then sped up again from the slow stroll they had been at to a quick walk, leaving him behind.

Ten years, Quaritch Thought. All the trouble had started ten years ago with Kruczek's arrival.

Not to mention the arrival of the Dreamwalkers.

* * *

_**Back at the Link Lab**_

As Grace Augustine entered the lab, all attention turned to her. Munoz and Patel began toward her for a confab; norm, who did not move, stood at attention, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Jake, however, merely looked up from where he had still been looking at the avatar. What they weren't prepared for were the first words out of the good doctors mouth.

"Where're the damn cigarettes?" Part of the irritation she'd had all morning was that she hadn't yet gotten her nicotine fix. Technically speaking, there was no way to get tobacco products to Pandora according to the regulations. Practically speaking, the mining crews smuggled in about 80 kilograms of the things every year aboard the ISVs, mostly of chinese origin, beginning about 7 years ago. When they arrived here, they found that smoking was generally discouraged due to the filter systems and the Na'vi didn't have the right brain receptors for Nicotine. What usually happened then was that Grace played poker with the off-duty mining crews, gambling with now-worthless cigarettes in lieu of hard currency. What they didn't know was that this Stanford academic was a card-sharp to genuinely fear; without meaning to, she'd introduced to the Na'vi the idea of cards divining the future, using a standard bicycle deck instead of tarots. It was great book material, but Grace had a bad habit of kicking herself over cultural contamination.

Guillermo reached into the pocket of his lab coat, took out out a carton of Shanghai Toasted Kings and tossed them over to Grace. After taking one out and putting it in her mouth, another aide came up and lit it with an electric starter. After her first draw, she got down to business. "So, _these_ are the new drivers."

Jake and Norm, now feeling her gaze upon them, came to their own forms of attention. After the same aide that lit her cigarette handed her a tablet, she began approaching the two while reading it. "Norman Spellman: University of Oregon Graduate, PhD in Botany, three more years working with Pandoran flora... 26 years old."

"Yes, ma'am... I mean, Doctor." Norm had heard about Augustine and her work, but had not expected the atmosphere to be so authoritative.

"I've heard good things about you from you. How's your Na'vi?" Grace asked, now sounding like she was holding a job interview, her cigarette smoke wafting into the hermetically-filtered air.

At this, Norm smiled, hoping that he could impress his new boss. _"May the All Mother smile upon our first meeting."_ It was Na'vi, but Jake could already identify the tone: _rehearsed_.

"_Not bad. You sound a little formal, but the elders should appreciate it." _Grace said in a tone that was much more natural.

"_There is still much to learn."_ Norm responded, still talking in Na'vi as if to practice.

Then Grace turned to Jake, who was sitting up in his chair at attention. "I know who you are, Jake Sully. And I know that I don't need a Marine; I needed your brother, the man who got his PhD at 22, the man that HQ assured me was the best new xeno-anthropologist they had." Seeing that his was still stiff as an ironing board, Grace said the two magic words. "At ease." After Jake had relaxed, Grace decided if this man had any redeeming value to her. "How much lab work have you done? Any experience with high technology?"

"Just High School Science: chemistry and the usual dissections." Jake then decided to add something. "I threw up a couple of times."

Grace, her body language clearly expressing her wish to scream obscenities in two languages and three dialects, nodded her head stiffly, her mouth a tight line. "In other words, an undergrad amongst doctors. Well, it's your lucky day:_ I_ may not need a marine, but Selfridge and Quaritch say our expeditions need an escort after what happened to Dr. Yang. You'll make a good addition in that roster."

"Excuse me, but that happened to Dr. yang anyway? I was sort of expecting to meet him here." Norm had heard of the work that the botanist from Korea University, but was now wondering what had happened.

"Well, we're not sure... but his avatar flat-lined on an expedition near the tribal boundary. We think it's dead, but we're not sure what hit it. Yang's been in rough shape ever since it happened about a month ago; he woke up in screaming fits right when it happened and he's still pretty withdrawn." Grace then switched subjects on the tablet, looking at the specifics of the new avatars. The donor for the Spellman avatar was an elderly man of the Tipani who had died last year, while the Sully avatar...

Upon finding the identity of the donor, Grace got even angrier, taking the opportunity to take an extremely long and deep draw from her smoke. "Well, let's get them decanted. While we wait, soldier-boy here can learn how we do things in this lab."

Thus began the first lesson in keeping a video-log.


End file.
